The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels & The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald Page: 472

We had friends over for dinner tonight so in addition to not getting my reading done, I’m also very tired. I don’t think I can get away with two unthoughtful blogposts in a row so…I’ll pretend I’m being thoughtful or at least ask you to be thoughtful.

What is the litmus test for contemporary literature? Time is a nearly infallible test, seventeen centuries of appreciative critics adds more than a sheen of respectability but without more than a few decades what decides you?

The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels & The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald Page: 408

Not much of a day and so not much to post. I spent part of the morning and part of the evening writing. I’ve been working on my book proposal and while it was going along swimmingly at first, I now feel a little stymied. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with it and it doesn’t seem to be growing organically as I’d hoped. Any ideas, requests or stimulating suggestions would be much appreciated. I’ve envisioned it so far as part memoir, part literary criticism. Harold Bloom by way of David Foster Wallace but as a woman…or something like that. Right now I feel neither smart nor funny though I feel fairly feminine. Help!

Jack the Giant Killer by Richard Doyle Page: 95 Finished

The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels & The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald Page: 221

Jack is a bit violent. Not exactly Grand Theft Auto…but seriously bloody. There is actually an illustration of a giant getting it in the head with a pickaxe! Not for the faint of heart.

I’m sort of enjoying Penelope Fitzgerald. Except that the first book is about a bookshop that closes down. And I’m also a bit tired of all the 20th century “literature” that I’m being forced (yes forced) to read. Many of the books are quite good but really very few are truly great and on the whole it just seems that there is way too much of it. I feel like Everyman’s 100 Essentials list should have been much more heavily weighted toward pre-20th century works and included more medieval works, more poetry and much less fiction. If Penelope Fitzgerald is “Essential” why isn’t City of God? Or Malory?

I do appreciate this opportunity to learn more about 20th century fiction and I believe that I’m doing well to have read these books but I’m not convinced that they are anything like essential.

Emma Page: 495 Finished

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh Page: 225

I find it interesting the way fiction can make you examine your own life. A Handful of Dust deals with a happy marriage that is unexpectedly destroyed through adultery and carelessness. The principal couple’s child also dies. Of course while reading it all I wanted to do was go hug my boys and find my husband and kiss him. But I think that the truly fascinating thing is the way that little details, minute descriptions of comments and conversations can make you think about the way you’re treating other people. In Emma it was the selfishness of Mrs. Elton toward her husband that reminded me to be extra careful of how I speak to and of my husband when we are in company. And in A Handful of Dust the thoughtless way Brenda simply allows herself to fall for another man without any self-examination, in fact with a sense of fatalism, reminds me to always be standing guard over my marriage. Little things, even asides, in a novel can really hit home if the timing is right for the reader to really hear them.

Waugh’s novel almost made me cry, but the final chapter (which was originally a short story called “The man who loved Dickens) makes me ill. The tragedy is so very palpable as one reads the pages. I’ve read that chapter, in its short story version, three times now and feel a little more sick each time.

I managed what I think is an impressive 270 pages today even while being very productive in the chores department. I read on a walk to the grocery store for formula and managed over fifty pages before 9am! And the boys both took two hour naps…at the same time! If this continues to work for me, I might have figured out a sure way to get my remaining 80 books read in the next four months

Emma by Jane Austen Page: 450

I’m happy to have read 230 pages today which is 13 more than my minimum requirement. I’m often asked how I manage to read so much and that inquiry has its kinder forms (I’m so impressed type) and its unkinder ones (I’m sure you’re just skimming type). I think I have unusual challenges but also unusual benefits. The challenges everyone reading here likely already knows. The baby and the toddler, a home to keep moderately clean, meals to prepare, the aftermath of Veritas to deal with, etc, etc. To offset all the insanity that ought to keep me from every reading a single page I have the gift of reading very quickly with a very high comprehension rate. “Normal” reading skill is about 200 words per minute with approximately 60% comprehension. I read at about 500 words per minute with about 95% comprehension. And that makes a big difference. I also almost never watch TeeVee and due to this project prioritize reading above almost every other activity.

My typical reading day doesn’t begin until the boys take their naps. I strategize all morning to make sure they are ready to go to sleep at the same time (not easy when they are at such disparate stages of development). Around 11:30 I lay them down and can count on an hour or two of reading time before one or the other wakes up. I don’t eat my lunch until they wake up in order to avoid wasting a single minute. Depending on the book I’m reading (some are of course slower going than others) and the length of the naps I get between 75 and 150 pages read. Then I have to wait until the boy’s bedtime to finish my daily quota. They usually get put in their cribs around 8pm and Jared takes responsibility for making sure they go to sleep while I cram in another 50 or 100 pages before I have to get my blog post up. Sometimes I have a hard time planning well, so I quit reading before my eyes shut involuntarily.

The weekends are much harder as Jared is home all the time and I’d rather be hanging out with him and he with me. I’m also more inclined to nap on the weekends. Sometimes I take a chunk of time and go hide somewhere and get my reading in but what I really need to do is get serious about taking a lot of time off to read on the weekends. I have around a 6000 page deficit to make up before December 31st! Yikes!

Just today, I think I’ve developed a new strategy for getting extra reading in. The boys really enjoy a ride in the stroller in the early mornings and so I often take them for walks. Good for them and peace and quiet for me. But I discovered last night that I can read while walking. I push the stroller with one hand and hold my book with the other. It slows my reading down quite a bit but as I wouldn’t be able to read at all if I wasn’t out walking, its pure bonus time. I read fifty pages today while walking down to my mother-in-law’s office to drop some things off. It was great, I felt so effecient. Excercise, an errand, peaceful children and Jane Austen; how much better can it get?

Emma by Jane Austen Page: 220

I always enjoy Austen. Her incisive wit, clear prose and grounded morality are so enjoyable and instructive that I can’t help it. All six of her novels are beautiful and they are each so unique. I’m sad that once I finish Emma I’ll be done with Austen for the year. If I may quote Peter Leithart:

“Precisely this “nominalism,” and minute attention to details of character and relation that accompany it, make Austen’s work a continuing source of both delight and moral instruction. Because of her limitations, she emphasizes the domestic and local context for moral decisions and action. For Austen, the sensational or extraordinary do not provide a sound basis for moral educaion and experience. Hers is not a “lifeboat ethics” focusing on the marginal extremes of ethical decisions. On the contrary, she recognizes that the greatest ethical challenges come in the midst of daily life, precisely when “nothing is happening.” (Miniatures and Morals P. 27)

And that’s why you need to read Austen, need to re-read Austen and need to force your sons and daughters to read Austen.

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes  Page: 320 Finished

The Woman Warrior, China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston Page: 541

Maxine Hong Kingston’s prose is amazing. Haunting, powerful, fanciful. And I love the photo of her on the cover of the Everyman’s edition. You might not be able to see it well, but she looks wild and wise in it.

I feel like sharing photos today so here are the boys, getting used to colder weather one early morning last week.

And here is what the windstorm brought us this evening.

Among today’s adventures, I tried donating plasma. It’s not really “donating” because they “compensate you for your time”. I couldn’t handle it. It’s not because I’m a wimp about needles (I’m really not anymore). I couldn’t handle the social awkwardness of it. I’m not sure if I’m hypersensitive, a snob or what, but between the indifference of the employees (and who could blame them) and the hopelessness of the average donor I didn’t stay. It took me two tries just to make it in the door. The building was more than a little grim and the waiting room was FULL of people who stared as you walked up. Once inside there was more staring and some intrusive comments and questions from others there waiting. I’m a fairly private person* and I really hate it when complete strangers - especially male ones - start talking to you out of the blue. I waited two hours before I was called (not a bad thing since I read) and then had to answer all the harrowing and offensive questions that the AIDS epidemic made necessary. Finally I was taken to a room for my basic physical and I was so chilled from the cold waiting room that the thermometer didn’t even register my presence. I was told that I could wait fifteen minutes to see if I warmed up but I couldn’t go outside…so was I supposed to do jumping jacks? Anyway, I fled at that point. I felt demeaned by the whole experience. I guess I won’t be selling my eggs or anything…I wonder what the key issue is. Is it modesty? Sensibility? Mere squeamishness?

*I know, I know, I blog…but it still freaks me out a bit when someone recognizes me from my blog or from the few times my photograph has been in our local paper. And the internet depersonalizes things just enough that I don’t have to be bosom friends with everyone that drops by.

I’m going to watch a movie with my husband instead of blogging tonight.

Comment on THAT!

The Stranger by Albert Camus Page: 117 Finished

The Woman Warrior, China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston Page:113

The Stranger was a quick and easy read. The bleakness and the heartlessness of the book may have been meant as an indictment of modern life but it seemed more to be a symptom than a diagnosis. I tend to think that beauty is the best indictment of ugliness not imitation.

Speaking of beauty, Maxine Hong Kingston has it. Not only does she describe it but it seems to me that she understands both how to show it and how to find it. She describes Chinese legend and folklore, tales and culture and whe is imaginative and creative with it. she also accepts American culture and is enriched by it. I think I’m a fan.

I’m sad that the more I post about food the more comments I get. Isn’t this supposed to be a book blog? Anyway, on the menu for this week is chili. My recipe is simple and developed from my mom’s recipe (too beany) and a recipe out of the Bride and Groom Cookbook (too complicated). The proportions are derived from the packaging sizes I find at the grocery store. One pound ground beef, one pound sausage, cooked together and drained. One onion finely chopped, one bell pepper also finely chopped sauteed together in a couple tablespoons olive oil (I use super cheap olive oil for anything that it is not a major ingredient of. Extra virgin is only necessary for things like pesto or salad dressing). Two 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes and one small can of tomato paste to thicken. Two cans (16oz?)of pinto beans (or whatever other beans you like and one large can of baked beans like Bush’s Baked Beans. A tablespoon of chili powder and salt to taste. Now here is the fun part, you can shake this up any way you want. In a hurry? don’t sautee the onions and the pepper and cook it on the stovetop for about an hour on medium high (stir often). Going to be gone all day? throw it all in the crockpot on low. Want to be extra penny pinching? Buy dry beans in bulk instead of the canned ones and soak them overnight; add brown sugar, a little pepper and some ketchup to compensate for the baked beans. Feeling extra gourmet? Add a few garlic cloves to the sauteeing onions and peppers and add some freshly chopped tomatoes to the canned ones. Serve it with grated cheese on top. With corn chips to dip. With cornbread and butter and honey. Over baked potatoes with melted cheese and steamed broccolli. With fry bread. This makes a small vat of chili that is meaty and filling and everyone should enjoy.

A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul Page: 564 Finished

The story ends kind of happy, kind of sad but better than I expected. Mr. Biswas wants a house, finally gets it five years before he dies and then almost loses it. But his daughter saves the day and his widow isn’t left homeless. Oh, and it’s really, incredibly well-written. I guess the Nobel Prize it won should have indicated something like that. I really identified with Biswas on one level. His rootlessness. I too grew up in scattered places occasionally living with relatives outside the immediate family. I too had a very strong desire for a home of my own. I wanted to buy my great-grandparents home when I was 19 but that didn’t work out. I wanted to by a house with my friend Kayla back when we were young and single. And now I have a home and I LOVE it all out of proportion to common sense and reality. I love every inch of it so much that I’d be happy if we never moved. I wouldn’t mind dying here. In this wandering age, when young families pack up and move across the country for the slightest of reasons, I’m very happy to remain rooted for the next 70 years. I would like to travel one day, but I always want to come home. Our home is small, with odd shaped doorways and doors that don’t fit. It has a sloping roof upstairs and a crowded, poorly planned bathroom. The bedrooms are small, the kitchen faucet leaky. But it is perfect because I really believe that I’ll get to stay. I don’t think I’ll have have to pack up and leave and I like it that way.